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NCRM podcast: Diary of a participant: using apps for qualitative research
No full textResearchers have been using diaries to capture the experiences and thoughts of their participants for some time, but the advent and growth of new technology has opened up exciting opportunities to use mobile devices in the same way. In this episode of the Methods Podcast, Dr Laura Radcliffe and PhD student, Leighann Spencer from the University of Liverpool School of Management, talk about their experiences of developing diary apps in their research
NCRM podcast: Food for thought: using fitness bracelet technology to tackle poor nutrition in low-income countries
No full textMany of us use fitness watches to get fitter, but could the technology behind these devices help the millions of people across the world who don’t have enough food to eat? In this episode of the Methods Podcast, Dr Giacomo Zanello from the University of Reading discusses research presented at the ESRC Research Methods Festival, looking at how the technology is being used to tackle poor nutrition among farmers and their families in low-income countries
Scaling up qualitative data: an introduction by Professor Lynn Jamieson
No full textLynn is Professor of Families and Relationships at the University of Edinburgh. She is the President of the British Sociological Association and founding director of the interdisciplinary consortium, the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships. Lynn is co-editor of the Palgrave Macmillan series, Families and Intimate Life and Associate Editor of the Policy Press journal, Families Relationships and Societies. Her publications include Intimacy: Personal Relationships in Modern Societie
Using internet video calls in qualitative (longitudinal) interviews: some implications for rapport
No full textForming part of the new ‘methodological frontier’ the use of digital communication technologies has become increasingly commonplace in social research. Whilst audio-only online interviews and asynchronous means of communicating online has been discussed for over two decades, video capabilities; being able to see a participant face-to-face online (e.g. via Skype, Face Time, Google Hangouts) is a much more recent phenomenon. Discussion of such new opportunities has tended to centre on the practicalities and technicalities. Alternatively, this paper moves beyond the recent empiricist focus to reflect critically on the implications of using internet video calls on methodological matters of importance to qualitative (longitudinal) researchers. Drawing on a long-standing qualitative longitudinal study following lives of over 50 young people, the paper focuses on the potentials and pitfalls for rapport of using internet video calls for qualitative interviewing. The findings have resonance for short-term studies, and longitudinal endeavours
Cultural determinants influence assisted reproduction usage in Europe more than economic and demographic factors
Get PDFThe use of ART varies considerably across countries in Europe (Calhaz-Jorge et al., 2016, Präg and Mills, 2017). The most recent release of the registers of the European IVF-Monitoring Consortium (EIM) for the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) (Calhaz-Jorge et al., 2016) reveals that the number of ART treatment cycles in 2012 ranged between 1457 per million women between the ages of 15 and 44 in Moldova compared to 14 431 per million women in the same age range in Denmark. The reasons for these differences, however, are not yet fully understood.
The economic development of countries has been previously considered as a main driving factor, but cannot explain the vast differences between countries. While richer countries have a somewhat higher prevalence of ART use, the relationship is far from perfect, with many poorer countries in Europe having high levels of ART usage. For instance, the Czech Republic reported 10 473 cycles per million women of reproductive age in 2012 but ranks low (51st) in national wealth as measured by purchasing power parity GDP. The Czech Republic has an ART treatment level that is close to the comparatively wealthier Denmark (ranked 37th), whereas high-income nations such as Italy (ranked eighth) and the United Kingdom (ranked fifth) reported only 5480 and 4918 cycles per million women of reproductive age, respectively (World Bank, 2011).
Existing research points to other economic, regulatory and demographic factors underlying country differences in ART uptake. Chambers et al. (2014) argued that it is not only country wealth, but rather the consumer affordability of treatment that drives the country differences in ART usage. Countries where ART treatments are more affordable due to insurance mandates or public subsidies have higher ART usage, suggesting that a cost cut of 10 percentage points of the average disposable income in a country predicts a 32% increase in ART utilization. With respect to ART regulation, Berg Brigham et al. (2013) showed that European countries with more liberal social eligibility regulations registered higher levels of ART usage. Kocourkova et al. (2014) illustrate that country differences in ART usage are related to fertility postponement. The greater the extent of postponement of first birth in a country, the higher demand for ART treatments. These studies have identified important societal drivers of cross-country differences in ART utilization.
Large-scale cross-national empirical research on cultural and normative factors shaping ART usage are rare, with some studies showing that cultural factors such as social norms and religion may be important predictors of ART usage (Benagiano, 2008; Adamson, 2009). Billari et al. (2011) reported that country differences in social age deadlines for childbearing, such as beliefs about having a child too early or too late, were predictive of differences in ART availability in European countries.
This study examines ART utilization data from 35 European countries and examines the extent to which financial, demographic, and cultural determinants explain the vast cross-national differences in ART usage and treatments in Europe. We replicate the well-known correlation of country wealth and ART treatments. In addition, we show how demographic factors such as fertility postponement are related to ART usage. There is a well-established link between women's higher educational attainment and postponement (Mills et al., 2011, Balbo et al., 2013), with the proportion of higher educated women also varying across nations. We therefore focus on the group of women most likely to postpone childbearing, namely mid-aged, highly educated women. We then take regulatory aspects of ART in the countries under study into account (Präg and Mills, 2015) and make use of survey data to understand country differences in the moral and normative cultural acceptance towards ART and how religious composition of countries is related to ART usage
MethodsNews Newsletter 2017: 1
Get PDFIn this issue:
1. In a climate of hostility to migrants, can research methods create conviviality?
2. From collections to crowdsourcing at the British Library
3. A poet, a social scientist and a participant walk into a bar…
4. Oral History in the twenty first century
5. Do we teach enough secondary data analysis?
6. Constructing a metric of wellbeing among older people in the UK
7. Transformative and inclusive social and educational research
8. NCRM training and event
Automated zone design in practice - webinar slides
Get PDFThis are the PowerPoint slides for the first NCRM webinar. The webinar was held on 6th June 2017. Professor Dave Martin talked about Automated zone design in practice. Recording of the webinar is available on the NCRMUK YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/NCRMU
Why is it so hard to get detailed counts of UK migration? - Professor Dave Martin
No full textThe present UK government has set an objective to "reduce net migration to the tens of thousands", which might at first glance seem a fairly vague target. There are ongoing debates, for example, about whether such targets are achievable or even desirable and what should actually be counted in the first place, for example whether overseas students should be included or not. Why is it so hard to agree on the answers to such apparently basic questions about how many migrants there are in the UK? The reality is that we have neither a population registration system nor a systematic way of counting migrants in or out of the country. In this talk, we will explore some of the principles and puzzles of UK migration figures - hoping at least to recognise more clearly what we can and cannot measure! This talk was part of the Hope & Hops: the science of society event organised by NCRM, CPC and ADRC at the University of Southampton. This event was included in the the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2017. bit.ly/HopeAndHop
"Sugar" - Researching discrimination through poetry
No full textThis video represents one of the outcomes of the Collaborative Arts-based Research project. The project was led by Dr Helen Johnson and this video features one of the co-investigators - Xander. The project was funded by the National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) and the University of Brighton